reaction among them; they are balanced and combined one with the other. Now, is this the work of chance or physical necessity? We cannot take it to be so. The result of these complicated operations proclaim to us a different truth. As we see such dissimilar action, still harmonious, and perpetual variety co-existent with unbroken unity-as we see dangers averted, difficulties overcome, perplexities escaped, and one undeviating purpose pursued, and yet no law displaced or suspended, but the economy of the universe preserved in its integrity, we feel the conviction come upon us with irresistible force, that there must be above all a MIND, free, personal, independent, infinite, and all-mighty! and that this mind governs all, and animates all, and resuscitates and sustains all. This mind thus imbuing, upholding, and controlling all things, is to us-PROVIDENCE.

And only by admitting such a Providence can we understand the constitution of the universe. The operation of its physical laws present us with phenomena which are an enigma and perplexity, when those laws only are regarded; but take the law with the lawgiver, admit the superintendence and interposition of a God, by whose supreme will all is regulated, and the enigma is explained, and the perplexity cleared away therefore we conclude that the fact admitted exists. With this conviction we say with the poet——

"Happy the man who sees a God employed

In all the good and ill that chequer life!
Resolving all events, with their effects

And manifold results, into the will

And arbitration wise of the Supreme."

Cowper's "Task," Book II.

Having, we trust, satisfactorily disposed of the objection brought against the existence of Providence, grounded on the fact that the material world is placed under general and immutable laws, we come to the specific object of our paper, which is to point out the relation of the history of mankind to Divine Providence. And few are the historians who can be our guides in this. Most, we might almost say all, of the writers of man's history and life occupy a less elevated point of view than the one to which the Christian would aspire. Consequently, he cannot but regard their works as imperfect, unsatisfactory, and, in a measure, delusive. He may justly pronounce of them that they are of the earth, earthy. The material and temporal almost entirely bound their horizon. By some, human history is transformed into ane ndless table of chronology, or a huge chapter of genealogical lore. They accurately mark down when dynasties take their rise and when they meet with their overthrow, and give with careful minuteness all biographical data concerning kings and princes; when they were born, and when they died, and what were the principal actions of their lives. You are told, with tedious amplitude, the geographical extent of their dominions, the splendour of their courts, the number of their subjects, the strength of their armies; while the battles they fought, and the defeats they sustained, or the victories they achieved, are vividly portrayed and eloquently descanted upon; but nothing is said of God, and his purposes and designs, in all these circumstances and events.

And when the history professes to be that of the people as well as of the kingdom, there is the same defect generally to complain of. Man is only regarded in his earthly relations and interests. You have his intellectual and social progress intelligently narrated; the birth of

opinion is noted down, and you can trace out the process how man's physical condition becomes improved and ameliorated. You see how superstition becomes illuminated with philosophy; how the true religion displaces the false; how the barbarian or the savage is developed into the civilized man; and how a civilized community passes from one stage of advancement to another in science, and refinement, and wealth, until the culminating point is reached, and decline and decay begin to ensue. Still, there is nothing of God in all this. The life and destiny of man are not connected, as they ought to be, with the Eternal throne. The impression left on the mind from the perusal of such histories is, that man has no higher relations and interests than what pertain to this life that all the glory and all the shame that belong to him is confined within the limits of his earthly career-that his intellect and passions are the primal source of all his actions, and decide the course and issue of his history-that the human reason, or a people's will, embodied in political government, is the highest authority and the strongest power in existence-that, in fine, our race has no God to guide and govern it, or that man himself is God.

Now, we are not conducted to this melancholy conclusion by the light of Christian truth, but it is the result of starting from a false point in our investigations. As one has well remarked, "In history, as in all science and life itself, the principal point on which everything turns, and the all-deciding problem, is, whether all things should be deduced from God, and God himself should be considered the firstNature the second existence-the latter holding undoubtedly a very important place; or whether, in the inverse order, the precedency should be given to Nature, and, as invariably happens in such cases, all -things should be deduced from Nature only, whereby the Deity, though not in express, unequivocal words, yet in fact, is indirectly set aside, or remains at least unknown." "Thus much, at least, we may say," adds this writer, "in reference to the science of history, that they who in that department will consider Nature only, and view man but with the eye of a naturalist-specious and plausible as their reasons may at first appear will never rightly comprehend the world and reality of history, and never obtain an adequate conception, nor exhibit an intelligible representation of its phenomena."*

The Christian follows the more excellent way. He begins with God, and he ends with God. In the world of mind, as well as in the world of matter in the free actions of rational man, as well as in the operation of unconscious physical law-he traces His hand. His theory of the universe is, that of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things; to whom be glory for ever." Not that Christianity is Pantheism. While there is God in all things, all things are not God. The Creator and the creature are not one. Man is distinct from God, and, though dependent upon God, he sustains a higher relation to him than that of a mere passive agent. He is a reason-gifted being, and thus made in the image of God. The intellectual and moral faculties with which he is endowed make him capable of free volition. He can originate the motives and control the passions by which he is swayed. He can so perform acts that, in the truest sense, they are his own. Nor is he under any law which necessitates the emotions of his heart,

* Schlegel's "Philosophy of History."

or the conduct of his life, to be in harmony with the Supreme will. Towards that will he may cherish enmity, and the enmity felt may be embodied in action. He may be disloyal and rebellious to that great Being whose he rightfully is, and whom morally he is obliged to serve. And history teaches us that the possible, in this respect, has become the actual. There is sin in the world; man has revolted from his allegiance to his Maker, the human will opposes itself to the Divine; and this statement applies not to the individual only, but to the race. All have sinned, and in design have come short of the glory of God. The existence of Providence, then, is not incompatible with human freedom, nor does it preclude the existence of sin; nor, on the other hand, does man's freedom, and the existence of sin, nullify the Providence of God. Amidst the free volitions, and self-originated passions, and independent acts of our race, Deity maintains his supreme authority, and works his sovereign will. And, though disloyalty and rebellion spread through the rank of rational intelligences, and those hearts which ought to glow with love to him burn with hate, he is still the Most High, occupying a throne which can never be overthrown, and swaying a sceptre which can never be wrested from his grasp. He ever reigns the Lord God omnipotent, directed solely by the counsel of his own will, and restraining man's wrath and opposition, or making them to redound to his own glory and praise. Yes, not less efficiently does he govern the spiritual than the natural world; and by him the course of events transpiring in our world's history is directed to its final issue with as much certainty as he regulates the motions of the planetary system to the production of the various seasons, and the alternations of night and day. Well, then, does D'Aubigné remark, "History should be made to live with its own proper life-God is this life. God must be acknowledged-God proclaimedin history. The history of the world should purport to be annals of the government of the Supreme King; for in all the movements of nations there is a living principle which emanates from God. God is present on the vast stage on which the generations of men successively appear. And this interposition of God in human affairs, which even Pagans recognised, we, reared amid the grand ideas of Christianity, cannot treat as superstition. We see God in those great phenomena, those great personages, those great states, which rise, and suddenly, so to speak, spring from the dust of the earth, giving to human life a new impulse, form, and destiny. We see God in those great heroes who start up in society, at particular epochs, displaying an activity and a power beyond the ordinary limits of man, and around whom individuals and nations come without hesitation, and group themselves as around a higher and mysterious nature. We see God in all events and circumstances, whatever their material magnitude, and from this stand-point the history of the world appears to us not a confused chaos, but a majestic temple, on which the hand of God is ever at work."

Nor is this the utmost limit of our vision. With the consciousness of God's presence and interposition in all things, we can connect a knowledge of his aim, his purpose and design. We know that he works, and we know for what he works. Christianity is an opening of heaven to us-an apocalypse-in which we are placed in a similar position to the rapt Apostle, when the celestial voice called him up to the throne of God, and promised to show him the things that should be.

"In

By the light of the revelation of Jesus Christ, we can see the end from the beginning of mundane affairs, we can trace out the future stages of man's history to its final close. Providence opens to us its arcanum, and announces the goal to which it is conducting human events. And what is the great truth we discover? Why, that "the work of redemption is the sum of all God's providences"-"that the object of the atonement and government of the world is one and the same." the former, God aims to restore a failen race to purity-to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus; in the latter, he directs the affairs of men so as to place them in circumstances most conducive to their salvation. This is distinctly asserted by the Apostle, in his celebrated discourse on Mars Hill, where he expressly teaches that God governs the affairs of men, so that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him and find him;' and this delightful truth has the highest possible confirmation in the fact that the government of the world is in the hands of Christ. From his mediatorial throne goes forth the power which upholds the physical universe, governs the nations of the earth, and protects the hairs which grow upon the disciple's head."

The statement of Müller, styled the prince of modern historians, has so often been quoted, that it must be well known. "The Gospel," he says, "is the fulfilment of all hopes, the finishing point of all philosophy, the explanation of all revolutions, the key to all the apparent contradictions of the physical and moral world. Ever since I knew the Saviour, I see all things clearly; with him there is no difficulty which I cannot solve."

The practical illustration of these sentiments will be the object of our next paper.

THE NEW YEAR.

THE year will be in itself no novelty, though it will be freighted with some new things. There will be new faces at many firesides-and new monuments and new inscriptions for the house appointed for all living. There will be a great sowing of new hopes, and a great harvest of new disappointments; great promises of amendment, and but little results. How many are the things that need to be made new! How much there is in the life of every one of us that would be discarded and substituted by some thing not yet experienced, if we had an adequate idea of what life is! A year, in a state of moral probation, is the seed-time for endless ages. Much do we hear, at such a season as this, of the uncertainty of life, the possibility that a sentence may be written against us, "This year thou shalt die!" But suppose, as we are prone to hope, it be otherwise;-that the good Providence that opens to our eyes the prospect of the new year, will permit us in undiminished vigour

to see its end: are we prepared to live-to live under all the responsibilities of existence in such a world as this to bear the weight which every moment will add to the sum of our character for good or evil, the amount that will be registered against us to await the audit of the last day? Nay, are we armed against all the foes that will beset us this very year-the enemies of our soul's peace? Are we ready to receive and profit by whatever of good shall be given us, to enjoy it in such a manner that its sweetness shall not become bitter in the retrospect ?— ready so to receive the sorrows we may meet, as that they shall be divinely transmuted into joy? He that is enabled to make the present truly a NEw year, need not doubt that it shall also be HAPPY. it may be so, let the motto be, "LOOKING UNTO JESUS;" looking unto him for pardon, peace, strength, consolation, and every grace and blessing.

That

A Tribute to the Memory

JOHN

OF

RIDGWAY,

EsQ.*

"The dead! The sainted dead! Why should we weep?

At the last change their settled features take?

At the calm impress of that holy sleep,

Which care and sorrow never more shall break?

Believe we not His word, who rends the tomb,

And bids the slumberers from that transient gloom,

In their Redeemer's glorious image wake?

Approach we not the same sepulchral bourne,

Swift as the shadow fleets? What time have we to mourn?"

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

"Live for something. Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year; you will never be forgotten. No, your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind, as the stars on the brow of evening. Great deeds will shine as the stars of heaven."-DR. CHALMERS.

"After he had served his own generation by the will of God, he fell on sleep, and was laid unto his fathers."-ACTS xiii. 36.

THICKLY fly the invisible shafts of the great Destroyer, and one by one our worthy friends drop around us. Within a few short weeks four of our standard-bearers have fallen. A meek and retiring, but loyal and generous-hearted Firth is soon followed by Allen and Griffiths, and Bootman and Ridgway-the remains of the two latter being borne by sorrowing friends to repose in the same sacred resting-place within a few days of each other. Faithful men of God! you were dear to us on earth, and precious is your memory. Your places in the church and the family are vacant. Deeply do we deplore your absence and the loss of your services; and the mournful thought that we shall see you no more on earth pierces our very souls with poignant grief; but our loss is your eternal gain. As each passed away, it might truly be said :

"Earth hath one angel less,
And heaven one more."

We weep, but ye rejoice. but ye are clothed with light.

friend.

We put on the habiliments of mourning,
We bend our heads in sorrow as we

We do not intend this sketch as a substitute for a memoir of our beloved
We hope a full Biography, suitable to the eminent position, character,

and usefulness of Mr. Ridgway, will be furnished in due course.

B